Forest regeneration

Last changed: 11 November 2022
fieldstudies

The purpose of this master’s and PhD course is to give the students insight into the complexity of forest regeneration in modern forestry across northern Europe. Several things will be discussed including seedling types, planting techniques and different site preparation methods. We will look deeper into plant ecophysiology and pests, especially the large pine weevil (Hylobius abietis). The course will also provide knowledge about the design of regeneration experiments and different techniques for measuring seedling vitality and growth.

The course will be held as a distance course scheduled on the summer semester from the beginning of June to mid-August. The course learning platform is Canvas and most of the literature, assignments, schedule, etc. will be available for you as a student as soon as you register.

The course consists of three major parts:

  1. Study of literature
  2. Field experiments
  3. Field week for three days in Asa and Tagel (Småland) and for two days in Skåne.

In the literature study we will provide students with several articles in five different subjects, closely related to regeneration. We will provide you with literature for mandatory reading as well extra literature for you two read or storage in your collection for future use.

The field work will take place already in the first weeks, in which the students will start with a seedling experiment, i.e. doing seedling inventory at first, subsequently moving to evaluation of survival and vitality of the newly planted seedlings, which will continue throughout the course. The teaching staff will be there to assist you, if necessary.

Both the literature study and the field work will prepare the students for the final field week in August. The last week of the course will be spent mainly outdoors, visiting experiments and areas in Småland and Skåne, in which different kind of regeneration methods have been used. Certain costs for accommodation and travels during the field week may arise for students. In order to provide a broader knowledge, we will invite lecturers from different universities in Sweden and Denmark as well as from larger forest companies and nurseries.

The teachers and lecturers at the course have long experience of research and practical work with forest regeneration. Emma Holmström (SLU) Kristina Wallertz (SLU), Karin Hjelm (SkogForsk), Cecilia Malmqvist (LNU), Matts Karlsson (Södra), Palle Madsen (former professor in Copenhagen) are amongst the people you will meet during this course.

In addition our ambition is to have active participation from several of the current PhD students from our research groups, both as lecturers and teaching assistants.